Media workers in Sidon on October 26, 2024, held posters featuring images of Lebanese journalists who perished in an Israeli strike in Hasbaya, southern Lebanon. — AFP
An Israeli strike on Friday morning claimed the lives of three journalists in Lebanon, prompting strong criticism from rights advocates regarding the increasing number of reporters killed in the region over the past year. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a 'strong condemnation' of the attack, calling on the international community to 'end Israel's long-standing pattern of impunity in journalist killings.' The strike, which occurred around 3am local time, targeted a group of guesthouses exclusively housing reporters in the southern Lebanese town of Hasbaya, resulting in the deaths of two journalists from Al Mayadeen television network and one from Al Manar.
Muhammad Farhat, a reporter with Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed, was among at least 18 journalists staying at the guesthouses in Hasbaya. There was no evacuation order from Israel's military. Farhat recounted to Reuters being awakened by the sound of Israeli jets flying low overhead and hearing two missiles strike nearby guesthouses before the roof of his guesthouse collapsed on him. 'The scenes were terrifying. We saw our colleagues and friends cut up, their limbs strewn all over, others were screaming and begging us to pull them out,' Farhat said later on Al Jadeed, visibly emotional.
The Israeli military acknowledged receiving reports of journalists being hit several hours after attacking what it described as a Hezbollah military structure in Hasbaya, stating that the incident was under review. The past year has been the deadliest for journalists in over 30 years, according to CPJ, with at least 126 reporters and media workers among nearly 45,000 people killed in Gaza, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Lebanon. Two Israeli journalists were killed in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel that ignited the war. Friday marked the deadliest day for journalists in Lebanon over the last year, with at least five other reporters killed in Israeli strikes while on assignment in Lebanon, including Reuters visuals journalist Issam Abdallah.
In a post about Friday's strike on X, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression Irene Khan stated: 'Deliberate killing of a journalist is a war crime.' Israel denies deliberately targeting journalists. Mazen Shaqoura, the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for the Middle East, told Al Jadeed that the strike represented 'a targeting of what we hear and what we see.'
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